In a British television program, “the big questions [1]”, hosted by Nicky Campbell on the BBC, a program was dedicated to the Bible, on the occasion of the commemoration of the 400 years anniversary of the publication of New King James Bible. The fundamental question around which the guests [2] debated was: is the Bible still relevant? This question is important, in that it allows us to reflect first on the position of the Bible, as a written document in relation to other ancient books, and secondly on its nature. Moreover, the concern of Professor Richard Dawkins, an atheist activist, one of the speakers on this program, was: why does the bible, a mythical book among many others, have the preeminence [3 ]? As he himself pointed out, what worries him is the spread of the Bible's message within Western civilization, while people are aware of other mythical documents. [4] From his perspective, the Bible is nothing more than a mythical document. This concern was also expressed by Francesca Stavrakopoulou by asking the following question: “why do we rely so far on a collection of ancient texts written thousands of years ago for a society which is completely different from ours [5] ? ” In fact, the answer to Dawkins' and Stavrakopoulou's question lies in the very nature of the Bible, if we accept the reliability of his statement.

It is true that the Bible is a book like other ancient books in terms of literary genres (history, poetry, saga, epistles), but its origin is different from other books. This distinction is found in the fact that the other books are products of the human mind; while the Bible has its origin in God, creator of all things. The answer is clearly given by the Bible itself. From the Old Testament to the last book of the New Testament, Scripture unambiguously asserts that its origin is from God. For example, Moses could write to the Israelite people concerning the word of God: “You shall add nothing to what I command you, nor take anything from it; but ye shall keep the commandments of Jehovah your God, as I command you "(Deut. 4: 2), and David declared that" the spirit of Jehovah speaks through me, and his word is upon me. language "(2 Sam.23: 2). This kind of statement is widely used throughout the Bible. But for our consideration we will, in the following lines, analyze 2 Timothy 3:16, which states that" all scripture is inspired of God, and useful to teach, to convince, to correct, to instruct in righteousness. ”Our study is subdivided into three points. First, we will discuss and explain the phrase“ all scripture ”to find it its meaning in the biblical context, secondly, it will also be a question of investigating the notion of inspiration. In other words, what does “inspired of God” mean? Finally, in the same idea of ​​continuing our investigation, we will approach what Scripture is inspired by God is not.

Understanding the notion of “all Scripture [6]”

The analytical text of our subject constitutes one of the fundamental verses of the New Testament which informs about the nature of the Bible. The first part of the sentence clearly states that “all scripture is inspired of God”. “All Scripture” here makes no reference to general literature, as some ironically say. Preferably, it takes into account only the word of God, and more specifically, depending on the particular context of Paul's speech, the whole of the Old Testament. To better understand what we are supporting now, we should consider verse 15 of this same chapter. In this verse Paul encourages Timothy to retain the word of God which he had learned from his earliest childhood: "From your childhood you know the holy letters, which can make you wise to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ" ( 2 Tim. 3:15). Two elements should be emphasized in this verse: (1) “from your childhood” and (2) “holy letters”. These two expressions give us a clear idea of ​​what the apostle meant when he mentioned “All Scripture”.

First, the expression "from your childhood" refers directly to the first chapter of this second epistle to Timothy in which the apostle reminds him that the law of God was taught to him during his childhood by his parents. It was a way of telling him that he was already prepared from a very young age to receive the gospel of grace which he had received from the apostle:

I give thanks to God, whom my ancestors served, and whom I serve with a pure conscience, that night and day I continually remember you in my prayers, remembering your tears, and desiring to see you in order to be filled with joy, keeping the memory of the sincere faith which is in you, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and who, I am convinced, also lives in you. (2 Tim 1: 3-5).

Second, "the holy letters" refer to the writings of the Old Testament. The Greek expression is "hiera grammata". It literally means “the sacred writings”. It was the "name given to the Old Testament by the Greek-speaking Jews [7]". These “sacred writings” are neither fables nor false doctrines taught by heretics, but the words of God communicated to his servants for his people. Moreover, the apostle Paul in the first epistle to Timothy, recalls and encourages him to exhort the Christians of Ephesus to avoid fables and false doctrines:

I remind you of the exhortation that I gave you when I left for Macedonia, when I urged you to stay in Ephesus, in order to recommend to certain people not to teach other doctrines, and not to become attached to endless fables and genealogies, which generate discussion rather than advance the work of God in faith (1 Tim 1: 3-4).

The teaching Timothy received from his childhood was an obligation for all Jews. All Jews were to learn the law of God from childhood in order to walk in the right way (Prov. 22: 6). The apostle, in this passage, refers directly to a statement made by Moses in the book of Deuteronomy:

Behold, I have taught you laws and ordinances, as Jehovah my God commanded me, that you may put them into practice in the land which you are going to take possession of. You will observe them and you will put them into practice; for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who will hear of all these laws, and who will say, This great nation is an absolutely wise and understanding people! (Deut 4: 5-6).

It is important to stress, moreover, that the text makes direct reference to the sacred writings of the Old Testament. But the question that comes back to be asked now is: does this mean that the gospels and the epistles of the New Testament can be considered scripture? Of course these documents are considered part of Scripture as well. New Testament writers frequently cite texts from the Old Testament as scripture. However, they also cite the New Testament writers as inspired scripture of God. Indeed, the apostle Paul admitted that he wrote his letters under the direction of the Holy Spirit. In the first epistle addressed to the Christians of Corinth, specifically on the problem of marriage and divorce, after having dealt with the different aspects of the problem, he affirmed: "and I also believe that I have the Spirit of God" (1 Cor. 7:40). And in the letter to the Christians of Galatians, Paul wrote: "I tell you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not of man; for I neither received it nor learned it from there. 'man, but by a revelation of Jesus Christ "(Gal. 1: 11-12).

Not only does he claim that his writings come from God, but he also quoted the gospel of Luke, in the same way he refers to the writings of the Old Testament. In 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul quotes Deuteronomy and Luke's gospel respectively as scripture.

For the scripture says, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when it treads the grain. And the worker deserves his wages (1 Tim 5:18).

In this chapter, Paul taught about the responsibility of Christians to the elders who lead the church. He was referring, citing to Scripture which had already made provision for this teaching. The first sentence of this verse is a direct quote from Deuteronomy 25: 4 and the second is Luke 10: 7:

Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when it treads the grain (Deut 25: 4). And in the gospel of Luke, we find the following: stay in that house, eating and drinking what you are given; because the worker deserves his salary. Do not go from house to house. (10: 7).

These aforementioned verses therefore give us confirmation that the Old Testament and the New Testament are part of scripture. But they are not the only ones. Other passages support this. The apostle Peter refers in the conclusion of his second epistle to Paul's writings as Scripture. So Peter could write:

Believe that the patience of our Lord is your salvation, as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you, according to the wisdom given to him. This is what he does in all the letters, where he speaks of those things, in which there are points which are difficult to understand, the meaning of which ignorant and ill-established people twist the meaning, like that of the other Scriptures, for their sake. own ruin (2 Peter 3: 15-16).

And Jude, for his part, refers to the writings of Peter as Scripture:

To exercise judgment against all, and to make account to all the ungodly among them for all the acts of ungodliness which they have committed and for all the abusive words which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are people who whisper, who complain about their plight, who walk according to their lusts, who have haughty words in their mouths, who admire people for reasons of interest (Jude: 15-16).

In verse 15, he quotes 2 Peter 2: 5-6 [8]; 3: 7 [9] and in verse 16 it refers to 2 Peter 2: 10 [10]; 2:18 [11]; 3: 3 [12]. These examples, as we have said, confirm that “all scripture” of the Epistle to Timothy has particular reference to the Old Testament, and in a general sense it is applicable to both the Old and the New Testaments.

So to speak, “all Scripture” makes no reference to general literature, such as philosophical, scientific and religious writings. This expression only refers to the word of God. The context of the verse denotes a clear meaning. There is no equivocity in the apostle's statement. Not only does the previous verse clearly tell us that it is about the word of God, the verb that comes immediately after clearly says that it is the origin of this word: it is “inspired of God”.

Considerations on “inspired of God”

Paul's statement clearly states that the scripture he is referring to came from God. Moreover as it is mentioned previously, this Scripture is neither fable nor myth, because these come from the imagination of the man, but it is the inspired word of God. In the original text this word does not exist, but it is used in the biblical versions translated from the French language. In the original Greek language, a single word is used to designate these three words: "theopneustos". This Greek word is composed of two elements: "Theos": God and "Pneustos": breath, spirit. Considering this Greek word, we could define the Bible as the word that came from the mouth of God, the word breathed by God, or the breath of God. This implies that the Bible was not born of the imagination of man. It is true that this word is not only used in the translated versions of the Bible, and that in some context it may mean having a new thought or idea born out of some observation or experience. . But, in the context of biblical translation, there is a technical term that refers to a direct intervention of God in the process of writing his word.

If in reality, this word can be the subject of different interpretations in French, the Greek word clearly shows that the Bible is not the result of human genius, but means that the Bible is the word coming out of the mouth of God. . In fact, the word inspiration according to DA Carson, one of the best scholars of the New Testament, allows one to understand Scripture as a time of action in which one simultaneously has the verbal revelation of God and the product of human hand [13]. And clearly, he defines this term as follows: "inspiration is normally defined (at least for Protestant circles) as the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit God on the human authors of Scripture, such that they wrote precisely what God intended they wrote in order to communicate his truth [14] ". Note that it is not man who is inspired, but Scripture. Moreover, the word inspiration implies, according to RC Sproul's analysis, another word: expiration. This one precedes that one. The expiration puts the emphasis above all on God who exhales his word in man, to whom is given this noble mission of putting this inspired word on paper. This, that is, the inspired word, is what it is because it came out of the mouth of God. To better understand, let's read Sproul's comment:

Paul's statement regarding the inspiration of Scripture refers to its origin. He uses the Greek word theopneustos, which means “God breathed. Although the word usually translates to “inhale”, which means “to inhale”, technically theopneustos refers to exhale, which would be precisely translated “to exhale”. Paul is saying that the Scripture is expired or exhaled by God. This is not a simple quibble. Obviously, for inspiration to take place, you first need to exhale. An exhalation must precede an inhalation. The point is, the work of divine inspiration is accomplished by divine inspiration. Since Paul speaks of exhaled by God, the origin of Scripture or its source must be God himself [15].

So to speak, the Bible is not a mere product of the human mind as skeptics believe, but it is the work of God himself. To make it available in a language accessible to the human mind, God commissioned approximately 40 authors through the ages to write it. In this sense the apostle Peter affirms with authority under the control of the Holy Spirit about Scripture the following:

Knowing first of all yourselves that no prophecy of Scripture can be an object of particular interpretation, for it is not by a will of man that a prophecy has ever been brought, but it is is moved by the Holy Spirit that men have spoken from God (2 Peter 1: 20-21).

Peter tells us that it is pushed by the Holy Spirit that men have spoken from God. It is true that each author has his own style, comes from a particular family and intellectual culture, has a unique temperament, and that some are of different geographical origin, but beyond all this, the essentials to grasp in the speech of the apostle, it is God who, in his transcendent capacity, in his infinite intelligence, made use of these men to reveal himself to man and to define what he expects from him. Scripture is not the fruit of the personal experiences of prophets, evangelists, and apostles. With regard to the writings of the New Testament, it must be understood that there is a work that is being done, in the sense that it has validated, in the sense of reconfirmation, the inspiration of the writings of the Old Testament, and subsequently self-confirmation again as inspired speech. In this same line of thought, John Macarthur's commentary on verses 19-21 of 2 Peter 1 is important:

When the New Testament writers wrote about Christ and his promise to return, they confirmed the truth of Old Testament scripture (Mt 4.12-16; 12.19,20; 21.1-5; Lu 4. 16-21; Ro 15.3; Heb 5: 5,6; 1 Pet 2 6,7, 22; Rev 19:10). It is therefore not the experience of the apostles, but the inspired and scruptuary account of the life and words of Christ, which authors have written down under the inspiration of the Spirit and which is contained in the New Testament , who came to validate the Old Testament [16].

Moreover, what is important to remember in this analysis of MacArthur is that we must understand that when we approach the writings of the New Testament, we must clearly remember that they are not the result of an experience. transcendent personal. They are preferably based on two validating elements: the Old Testament and the words of Christ.

So to speak, All Scripture is inspired by God refers directly to work done by God by devolving the responsibility of writing it to certain men under his direction. The passage from Peter gives a complementary view on the question of the inspiration of the Bible, in the sense that it makes it possible to better understand the word of Paul. In verse 20 when he asserts that "no prophecy of Scripture can be the object of particular interpretation", we must understand here the idea of ​​something which did not emanate from the spirit of the man. It is not the result of personal passion. In this sense, MacArthur made an apt point about the phrase “to be the object of”, writing the following:

The expression to be an object [of] makes ginetai which more accurately means "to come into existence", "to derive its origins from" or "to arise". No part of the holy writings, both Old and New Testament, came into existence the way all false prophecies did (see Je 14.14; 23.32; Ez 13.2) [17].

And, after citing the example of God who exhorts his people not to listen to the words of false prophets, he gives an explanation of the word “interpretation”, writing the following:

The interpretation (epiluseôs) is a regrettable translation, because in French this word designates the way in which a person understands Scripture, while the Greek substantive is a genitive which designates a source. So Peter did not allude to the explanation of Scripture, but to that of its origin. The following statement in verse 21, for it is not by a man's will that a prophecy was ever made, but (alla, "quite the opposite") it is prompted by the Holy Spirit which men have spoken from God, further supports the point of origin. What human beings can wish for has absolutely nothing to do with divine prophecy [18].

We also believe that the phrase “it is moved by the Holy Spirit that men wrote on behalf of God” deserves careful attention here. This part of the sentence makes it clear that it is the Holy Spirit who propels men to write. Not only does it prompt them, but it also controls them while they are writing. Marc Arthur explains, for his part, the word “pushed”.

Here, pushed (pheromenoi) is a passive present participle which means "continually" or "carried" or "carried away". Luke has used it twice (Acts 27:15, 17) to describe how the wind pushes a sailboat across water. For Peter, it is as if the writers of Scripture hoisted their spiritual veils and allowed the Spirit to inflate them with the powerful breath of revelation as they wrote down his words. [19] .

This consideration of the three key words of the verses taken from the epistle of Peter gives a very convincing explanation of “all scripture is inspired of God”. In summary, we have just seen that the expression “all Scripture” has nothing to do with literature in general, but only with the word of God, including for our current context, the Old and the New Testament. Next, we analyzed the expression "inspired by God". This analysis in the light of the Word of God implies that God guided men to write what he wanted to make known to his people and to humanity in general. However, there is another concern about the phrase “inspired of God” which holds our minds, and to which special attention must be paid. It is a question of understanding here that all Scripture is “inspired of God” does not necessarily mean “dictated by God”.

Inspired by God not necessarily dictated by God

Some might believe that the inspiration of the bible as exact words dictated by God. To avoid confusion, it is important to discuss this point, in our important sense, to better understand clearly what the divine inspiration of the Bible means. Some say that it is not possible that the Holy Spirit can breathe words to men, gathered in a set of writings (Bible) whose styles and genres (History, Poetry, proverbs, Allegories and prophecies) are so diverse. Sometimes, in wanting to deconstruct the Bible, skeptics seek to show that there are obvious contradictions in the Bible. For example, they particularly like to point out the Gospels to show that on the same character, there are contradictory stories. Although this argument does not hold up in the sense that each gospel, depending on its recipient, emphasizes a particular aspect, and that God did not forbid gospel writers to use their style and vocabularies of their domain to write what he wanted to make known to man, and that the four as a whole present a complete figure of the ministerial life of Christ, but the question of knowing whether inspiration means dictation still remains relevant.

Some believers also think that when the Bible self-proclaims “to be inspired by God,” it means that all words, all commas are directly dictated by God and that the responsibility of the writers was only to copy onto media. We believe that our God is powerful enough to do this. However, it is evident that he did not choose to do so. He did not use humans as a “typing machine” or as a robot to communicate his main purpose to humanity. On the other hand, he goes through the human channel to transmit his word. Speaking of the human channel, we must understand here the linguistic, stylistic ability and the practice of literary genres already existing within human communities. Eric Lyons, said himself, in this same vain, the following:

If God had dictated the Bible, the style and vocabulary of each book of the Bible would have been the same everywhere. But, a simple reading of the scriptures will prove that the view supporting mechanical dictation is incorrect. The point is that the personality and style of each author is evident in every book of the Bible. Paul's writings are different from Peter's, and John's writings are different from Luke's. At times, Bible writers use different words to teach the same story or to give the same commands. [20]

After having stressed that inspiration does not translate the idea of ​​“dictation”, and after having supported his assertion with the help of an example for the same story (the difficulty for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God ) Marc and Luc use different words depending on their respective field, Lyons tells us, and we agree, what he means by the word inspiration:

The correct point of view for understanding the inspiration of the Bible is verbal and comprehensive. This means that the writers of the Bible wrote exactly what God wanted them to write, without error or fault, yet in their writings their personalities are evident. By “verbal” we mean that all the words in the Bible exist because God has so permitted them (by means of the Holy Spirit) [...] By “complete” we mean that each part of the Bible is inspired, without omitting anything [21].

And Gordon R. Lewis, in the same line of Lyons, wrote the following:

God was preparing these conscious, active prophetic, apostolic Spokespersons (and their secretaries) providentially through their inheritance, character, vocabularies, and writing styles. At the appropriate time, in all the processes of writing, they have been directed by the Holy Spirit (2 Pt 1:21). This technical sense of inspiration does not imply that all so-called revelations outside the Bible or all literature, in a more general sense, can be of divine inspiration [22].

In Lewis' approach, a caveat is given. He takes care to say that this technical explanation given to the word inspiration is exclusively used for the Bible. Which means that no other man can come and say that he was moved by God to add to the canonical Bible. Moreover, the Bible itself has given this warning. Anyone who claims to add to what is written in this holy scripture will be cursed by God (Revelation 22: 18-19).

So to speak, Scripture inspired by God does not necessarily imply a dictation by God. Although it should be clarified with John MacArthur that “God sometimes dictated the exact words to the writers of the Bible (eg Je 1: 9), but more often he was content to use their minds, their vocabulary and their experience to produce his perfect speech, infallible, free from any error [23] ”.

Concluding remarks

The basic passage for our topic of analysis (2 Tim 3:16) has explored and arguably asserted that the whole Bible has its origin in God. This is the main author, although he uses men to write it down. The preeminence of the Bible over other books, despite its age, is simply explained by the fact that its message is the infallible and eternal word of God. The Psalmist himself could write: “The foundation of your word is truth, and all the laws of your righteousness are everlasting” (Ps.119: 160). In this same line of thought, the prophet Isaiah noted in writing that “the grass withers, the flower falls; But the word of our God endures forever ”(Isaiah 40: 8). And the Lord Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, the “I am” (John 8:58) and “the Alpha and the Omega” (Rev. 1: 8; 22:13), authoritatively declared about of himself: “heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matt. 24:35). So to speak, the Bible is still relevant and will remain relevant because it is the word of God. It should be emphasized, among other things, that it is not only a question of the self-affirmation and self-defense of the Bible, but it is above all the accomplishment of what it predicts that it is appropriate to underline. The Bible is the only book that contains two parts where the second contains the fulfillment of the prophecies written in the first. With regard to Christ alone, according to some studies, there is the fulfillment of more than 350 prophecies documented in the New Testament [24]. This recalls well the words of the Lord through the mouth of Isaiah, saying: “As the rain and the snow come down from the heavens, and do not return there without having watered, made the earth fruitful, and caused the plants to sprout, without to have given seed to the sower and bread to him who eats, so also is my word, which goes out of my mouth: it does not return to me without effect, without having carried out my will and accomplished my purposes ”( Isaiah 55: 10-11).
In addition to this, you need to know more about it.
Moreover, it is important to point out that, regarding Stavrakopoulou's objection to the Bible as a compilation of ancient texts written in a societal context different from today's society, it was necessary to have a space -time for the text to be written, which will necessarily imply a socio-historical context. However, the content of the message transcends time and space. What we are saying about the Bible also applies to some extent to other works of antiquity as well. So far Plato and Aristotle, for example, have had their say in debates about virtue and human dignity. However, the difference between these books and the Bible is that the latter is eternal in that its main author is God who is omniscient, omnipresent, while these are called to be criticized, revised and even to be overwhelmed. While the Bible has been written for millennia, the message it delivers contains both the past, the present, and the destiny of the world. It tells how the universe and what it contains was created: out of nothing God created it (Gen.1). So to speak, this universe, which had a beginning, will also have an end. In fact, scientific advancement has only confirmed this biblical truth that the universe has a beginning and that the phenomenon of entropy explained by scientists affirms the end of the latter. The Bible is the word of God, which is why it has been relevant, is still relevant and will remain relevant despite societal changes, the emergence of new cultures. And by the fact that the Bible has a divine nature, this is the reason it is different from other books and unique.

Mauley Colas

Vice-President of Standing 4 Christ Ministry
 

Bibliographical references

DA CARSON, Collected Writings on Scripture (Compiled by Andrew David Naseli), Illinois: Crossway, 2010.

Eric LYONS, Does Inspiration Imply Dictation? Apologetic Press. Available online at https://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx? Category = 13 & article = 565 (accessed 8/30/2015).

Gordon R. LEWIS, “What does it mean that God inspired the Bible?” in The Apologetic Study Bible, Nashville: Holman CSB, 2003, p.1812

John MACARTHUR, John MacArthur Study Bible, 4th ed, Geneva Bible Society, 2010.

John MACARTHUR, The General Epistles and the Apocalypse, Quebec: Impact, 2010.

John W. WENHAM, Christ's view of Scripture, in Norman L. Geisler (Sld), Inerrancy, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1980, pp. 3-36.

Merrill F. UNGER, William WHITE, Jr, Vine's Complete expository dictionary, Mexico City: Thomas Nelson, 1970.

RC SPROUL, What is Reformed theology? New ed., Michigan: BakerBooks, 2012 (1997).

THE BIG QUESTIONS, Is the Bible still relevant? [Video file] uploaded on November 30, 2013. Retrieved: https://youtu.be/8Zyq06GvOQ8 (consulted on 3/26/2017).
Wayne JACKSON, The Holy Scriptures-Verbally Inspired, Apologetics press. Available online at https://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx? Category = 13 & article = 5174 (Accessed 9/22/2015).

Reference Notes
[1] The big questions, Is the Bible still relevant? [Video file] uploaded on November 30, 2013. Retrieved: https://youtu.be/8Zyq06GvOQ8

[2] Reverend Michael Nazir Ali, former pastor of Rochester; atheist professor Richard Dawkins; Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, and Bible researcher, Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou.

[3] Richard Dawkins [7mn 29s- 8mn 11s], in The big questions, Is the Bible still relevant? Op.cit.

[4] Richard Dawkins [8mn 22s- 9mn 21s], in The big questions, Is the Bible still relevant? Op.cit.

[5] Francesca Stavrakopoulou [27mn19s-27mn34s], in The big questions, Is the Bible still relevant? Op.cit

[6] Some scholars have done interesting work on certain terms and expressions used, as figures of speech, by New Testament writers when they refer to God himself or what he has said through the mouth of his prophets. , as “it is written” “oracle” and “scripture”. The latter and God are sometimes used interchangeably. John W. Wenham, pointed out in this connection that “we find that“ scripture ”is used where one might expect“ God ”and“ God ”is used where one might expect“ scripture ”. Romans 9:17 is read: “for the scripture says to Pharaoh, I have raised up thee purposely to show my power in thee, and that my name may be published in all the earth”. The meaning is, of course, “in the biblical narrative, God said to Pharaoh…” Similarly, in Galatians 3: 8 we read: “also Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, has in advance proclaim this good news to Abraham: all nations will be blessed in you! ” (1980: 21). And Wenham continues to write: “God is considered to be so much the author of Scripture that in these contexts God and Scripture are interchangeable” (Ibid). However, this practice of interchangeability does not imply that New Testament writers worshiped the Bible. Far from there. He is a figure of speech which simply means that Scripture is the word of God. In fact, Christians worshiped the "word made flesh", which is God incarnate in the person of Jesus, not the "word made text". The word made text is the word of God written by the hands of men and all its importance depends on its source, which is the Triune God himself. It reveals to us the nature and attributes of this God. It provides us with information about the works of God, such as creation. It provides information on the men and women who witness the revelation of God. It reveals to us the promises of God with regard to his servants, informs us about the judgment of God on humanity. So to speak, Christians worship God and believe in his word.

[7] John MacArthur (2010: 1906).

[8] This is what is said in verses 5 and 6 of 2 Peter 2: “if he did not spare the old world, but if he saved Noah, he eighth, that preacher of righteousness, when 'he brought the flood on a world of ungodly people; 6 if he condemned to destruction and reduced to ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, setting them as an example for the ungodly to come… ”

[9] In 2 Peter 3: 7 Peter writes: “While by the same word the heavens and the earth from now are kept and reserved for fire, for the day of judgment and for the destruction of ungodly men ”.

[10] 2 Peter 2:10: “the day of the Lord will come as a thief; on that day the heavens will pass with a crash, the fiery elements will dissolve, and the earth with the works it contains will be consumed ”.

[11] 2 Peter 2:18: “With speeches swollen with vanity, they lead by the lusts of the flesh, by dissolutions, those who have just escaped from the men who live in error;”

[12] 2 Peter 3: 3: “knowing above all that in the last days there will come scoffers with their mockery, walking according to their own lusts”

[13] DA Carson (Op.Cit: 31).

[14] Ibid.

[15] RC Sproul (2012: 46).

[16] John MacArthur (2010: 703).

[17] John Macarthur (Op.cit .: p.705).

[18] John Macarthur (Op.cit.:705-706).

[19] John MacArthur (Op.cit.:706).

[20] Eric Lyons, Does Inspiration Imply Dictation? In Apologetic Press. Available online at https://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=565 (accessed 8/30/2015).

[21] Ibid. see also: Wayne Jackson, The Holy Scriptures-Verbally Inspired, Apologetics press. Available online at https://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=13&article=5174 (Accessed 9/22/2015); DA Carson (2010: 31-35)

[22] Gordon R. Lewis (2003: 1812).

[23] John MacArthur (Loc Cit.).

[24] 353 prophecies fulfilled in Jesus, in According to the Scriptures. Available online at http://www.accordingtothescriptures.org/prophecy/353prophecies.html (accessed 04/012017). 351 prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ, in New Testament. Com. Available online at: http://www.newtestamentchristians.com/bible-study-resources/351-old-testament-prophecies-fulfilled-in-jesus-christ/ (accessed 04/012017).